How to actuate this Solari MD120?

[leecravens]

Hello everyone. I recently bought a Solari MD 120 which would normally act as a slave for a Cifra 120 but I have no intent of buying a Cifra master. My intent is to use an NTP synchronized Arduino or Raspberry Pi to send an impulse once a day to the clock.

Does anyone know what voltage and signal I should be sending to advance the date? Is it just a standard 24 VDC pulse once a day? Additionally, does anyone know anyone what each of the wires are? There are red, black and white wires along with a ground. I believed this clock to be a unipolar design as I can advance the date by applying 9VDC between the black and white wires so I’m not sure what the red is for.

Lastly, does anyone know if this clock has a perpetual date function? The manual seems to indicate that it does but I think it may be driven by the master rather than this slave.

Thanks in advance for any information!

[flipoclock]

That is one very cool clock!

The voltage is not always the same. I have a Solari clock here (without date) and it needs 220v pulses, this is apparently not very common, but it is possible. You will need to open it up and check what kind of motor is inside or is there perhaps a label on the back of it?

[leecravens]

Thank you for your quick response!

I have removed the clock case and have also examined the diagram further but am still left with some questions.

There are no markings on the case about the electrical requirements. Presumably this is because this unit was never intended to be used independent of the Cifra clock that drives it. There is a Bühler motor inside the clock, also with minimal markings, and I’m not sure how to determine the proper voltage for this motor.

There is NO/NC micro switch inside the clock which seems to switch between white/green wire and the red/green wire. There is a mechanism that actuates this switch during the movement in the clock. Oddly, I can continuously rotate the clock by connecting a 9V cell between the blue/black wire and the white/green wire. I would assume think that the micro switch would break continuity through the white/green wire but maybe the momentum of the clock just rolls right past this switch.

At any rate, I can tell that I will likely need to carefully time my pulses so as not to drive this clock past more than one date at a time. The other thing is that I’m guessing this is probably a 12 VDC motor if I can drive it with a 9 VDC cell. But could this perhaps be a 24 VDC motor and under powering it could cause damage?

Any other insight into how I could get this working would be more than welcome!

[gtaguy]

Do you also have the clock side? The clock side is the brains, and can either be master or slave. The calendar side doesn't have any logic board, so sending a pulse will have to be timed.

[leecravens]

Unfortunately I do not have the clock side and at this point I don’t really intend to acquire one. I know that it would simplify things greatly if I used one but I really don’t have the display space for it so I’m trying to use the date module in a way that it was never designed to be used.

I did reach out Solari in the off chance they had some info. They were kind enough to reply and even though they didn’t have specific info, they said the suspected that this module operated off of a 24 VDC pulse. I’m going to try to try to experiment with different pulse lengths to see what will work without skipping dates.